The Highest Goal

Book excerpt: For over 25 years, Michael Ray taught the celebrated Personal Creativity in Business course, mainly at Stanford University but also in non-academic settings. Over the years, Ray began to realize that the course was having a more profound impact on graduates than he'd ever intended. It went way beyond helping them in their careers. People who'd been through the course seemed to blossom-to have access to some secret source of energy and inspiration. They found new ways to contribute to their organizations. They thrived on diversity, fought gracefully, treated others with compassion, acceptance, appreciation, and respect. As one graduate put it, "This is transformation that works and lasts." What was going on? Ray came to realize that his creativity course was helping people discover what he calls their "highest goal." Your highest goal is what gives real meaning to your life-it is what speaks to the very core of your being. It's what makes you feel connected to something higher than yourself, whatever you call it-God, Truth, Spirit, Being. It's what truly motivates and sustains you, although you may not be able to put it into words, or even be consciously aware of it. It has nothing to do with worldly success or achievement, but Ray found that all of the successful people who had been through his course had a sustained connection to it. In fact, it was what they ultimately attributed their success to. In The Highest Goal, Michael Ray shares what he learned through decades of teaching his creativity course to help you discover, and live by, your highest goal. Throughout the book, Ray offers exercises, stories, and reflections that will help you get in touch with your highest goal, follow a path in tune with it, and let it inform every aspect of your life. Your highest goal is a source of power and wisdom that can vastly improve not only your own life, but the lives of everyone around you. Ray shows us how to open this inner font of creativity, compassion, and courage.